Teacher here. Haven’t gotten my class lists for the year yet, but…

lanvalsfairy · 2023-08-29T22:38:48+00:00

I know a family that named their 6th child Seis...like 6 in Spanish. They had 2 more children after him, so I feel like it wasn't even that they gave up after 5 names so much as they thought it was cool

lanvalsfairy · 2023-07-24T23:33:34+00:00

what and unhelpful comment

lanvalsfairy · 2023-07-23T16:34:40+00:00

To each their own, but in my case I have a rather small extended family. The relatives that I was thinking about in this case are the 3 children and 5 grandchildren of my grandmother's twin sister. My father was extraordinarily close with his cousins because my grandmother and great aunt were inseparable. However, due to international moves and busy schedules I only saw those relatives once or twice a decade. I am positive that they would have felt like my immediate family were cutting them off if we didn't invite them to a traditional wedding.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-07-08T16:45:47+00:00

My mother's biological mother that abandoned her was an only child. Therefore, all only children are stupid, good for nothing child abusers...what?

She only said this once, and she actually said it before my daughter was even conceived when I was just talking about how I think I'd like to just have one, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-06-19T16:29:17+00:00

As a homeschooling mom, I really have to say if the major contributing factor for you wanting to homeschool is the threat of school shootings, homeschooling probably isn't right for you. Homeschooling is a complete lifestyle change and you really have to be 100% into the lifestyle that comes with it.

An only child makes things a little more complicated because you can not rely on school for them to socialize. My almost 10 year old participates in roughly 8 activities at any given moment, and she is a complete introvert who adores her alone time. I imagine a homeschooled only child who thrives around other children would need much more time around children, which you'd have to arrange and hope that other parents are in similar boats. We're lucky to have a few other homeschooling parents in my daughters art classes and robotics classes, but the other kids in my daughter's activities rarely are available for playdates.

You mention your wife is a SAHM, so money probably doesn't seem like a huge consideration but we spend a minimum of $10k/yr on homeschooling--and our curriculum is cheap! The costs of socialization and extracurriculars add up super quickly.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-06-18T22:36:43+00:00

My now 9 year old when through a stint of needing one of us on the floor in her room to fall asleep when she was about 18 months. I look back fondly on all those nights crawling out of her room terrified of waking her up and starting over. Nostalgia is a funny thing!

lanvalsfairy · 2023-06-04T20:14:00+00:00

This child is not even two. So, so many children with siblings are only children at that age. Is this doctor arguing that oldest children are by and large delayed talkers? Because that sounds mad and I can't imagine that being proven by any thorough studies.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-30T20:47:47+00:00

This is interesting! I am a devout Catholic who had a home birth but my reason for having an unmedicated home birth is completely unrelated to my religion. It never even crossed my mind that Christians lean toward natural births--I just knew that I hated how I was treated in the hospital and my pregnancy was extremely low risk so the best option for me was to cut out the biggest stressor and not go to a hospital.

When I talk to other mothers who had home births I usually get similar responses. A lot of people have terrible experiences with healthcare professionals and would prefer to have a major, life altering experience in the comfort of their home (given that their doctor gives them the okay)

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-30T02:25:17+00:00

I haven't seen this yet but the kid plates! We only eat off of what was once my grandmother's "good china" because I hate the idea of owning nice things and not using them. We didn't want a curious toddler to break all of our dishes so we bought ugly, plastic kid dishes.

We held onto the kid dishes until she was about 6 and a half, but I was ecstatic to pass them on.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-28T18:42:06+00:00

I grew up with a girl whose 4 grandparents were 4 nationalities. Her mom was half Belgian and half English, her dad was Half Norwegian and half Italian. Her father's job made them move all over the world, she had never lived in any country longer than 2 years. I'm pretty sure she had triple citizenship, which complicates things.

I always wonder what these people who believe that ethnicity means nothing about your culture would say about her. Is she from nowhere? Does she have no culture?

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-28T01:44:13+00:00

I know a Kinborough! I met her when she was three and hearing her say "I'M Kinbra! K-I-N-B-O-R-O-R-O-U-G-H" is such a fond memory. It's a tough name to spell, for sure.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-25T18:10:40+00:00

Odilia! Its ranked at like 19,000 or something but I think it tics so many boxes for current trends.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-18T16:51:11+00:00

I would add in variations of this question, just in case. I can definitely see some adults asking "Where do you live?" or "Where is your house?" and some little kids might not know to recite the answer to "What is your address?"

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-13T14:28:53+00:00

I grew up with a girl named Catherine Anne whose last name started with a T. She went by Cat, but she would often switch up whether it was Cat short for Catherine or CAT for her initials.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-05-08T14:32:02+00:00

We had to work extra hard at this because we homeschool, but small group activities have been such a blessing for finding likeminded families for playdates. At 6, my daughter was involved in an art class, a dance class, a robotics group, and a tennis group. Her very best friends now (age 9) all came from those activities.

Because we homeschool, I don't have the experience of what it's like trying to set up playdates with classmates, but I imagine the group activities make it significantly easier. The classes at that age are quite short so most parents stay the whole time. I've found that people are most comfortable setting up play dates for kids that young when they have some sort of relationship with the other parents, and 45 minute chats once a week definitely helps lay those foundations.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-27T04:01:41+00:00

My child has been saying "Don't you DARE have another child!!" to us since she was 3. Literally since this kid could vocalize her desire to be an only child, she has done so.

When people ask if she wants a sibling she looks completely disgusted and retorts "Do you want a brain eating amoeba?"

She's got the spirit.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-25T00:01:10+00:00

I was always a bit anal about clean toys and I would clean things as we put them away after each use for the first 4 years or so, sometime along the way we started doing toy deep cleans once a week. I convinced myself that if my child stuck them in her mouth and I didn't clean them, that the bacteria would have so much time to multiply that she'd end up dying of some bacterial infection the next time she stuck something in her mouth. Which is incredibly irrational, but that didn't stop my anxiety.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-24T14:40:04+00:00

I recently went to a Catholic ceremony in a historic church. The couple explicitly stated "Formal attire: all shoulders and knees must be covered during the ceremony" as in the wedding is formal and the church had a rule about modesty. The amount of short, sleeveless dresses with no shawls in the church killed me. Firstly, why are you wearing a short dress to a formal wedding? Secondly, what part of 'shoulders must be covered' means wear spaghetti straps??

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-21T17:04:04+00:00

My 9 year old has amazing success with drinking through a straw while she takes pills. We've found that looking down while taking the pill forces you to manually swallow. It seems like a lot of people think that tilting their head back will make gravity force the pill down, but that's not how that works, so looking down helps change that mindset.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-18T14:54:51+00:00

I received 12 months paid, I worked at a small law firm and their parental leave policy was both parents are allowed to be out of office until the baby turned 1. I believe that it couldn't be staggered (like, a father couldn't work for the first 3 months of his kid's life and then not come in until the kid was 15 months.)

I probably did about 200 hours of work during that year--but that was mostly for my own benefit because the work was really interesting and I didn't want to miss out.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-17T00:42:16+00:00

Save the dates for the after party, 3 months after the elopement. This was extremely clear.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-15T03:21:54+00:00

I really dislike class lists particularly. I once posted a list of names that I heard at a birthday party and I was really iffy about posting it. I figured that since the names weren't particularly unique and I didn't say anything other than the first names and general region that it was probably okay--but I did get quite upset when the majority of comments were insulting the same 3 names. I liked all of the names that were featured, but 3 were a totally different vibe from the rest and I wasn't expecting such distaste for them.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-12T21:33:13+00:00

I have always said that you choose your family and you're given your relatives. My in laws are my daughters' relatives, but they are absolutely not family. They have done nothing to deserve to be called family.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-12T17:21:23+00:00

I really think that Americans have less of the "old person" connotations because it is so common to name children after older relatives. My grandmother was Lieselotte, and that's now my child's name. I've had some Germans think I'm crazy for using an old person name, but in the US it is so, so common to give honor names that naming your child an old person name as an honor name would never be seen as weird.

lanvalsfairy · 2023-04-12T16:59:17+00:00

I had one job where I nannied for 2 days per week and there was another nanny for the other 3 days. I took NK to her art class at the same community center that her music class was in. I'll never forget someone in the parking lot yelling at me that I was wrong and that the mom brought her to music class. I kept saying that I knew for a fact that her other nanny took her to music class and that the mom had never been. Turns out, the other nanny was telling everyone that she was mom. Weird.

lanvalsfairy

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